KR Narayanan

Kocheril Raman Narayanan, who has died aged 85, was the 10th president of India, from 1997 to 2002. He was the first - and, so far, only - member of the Dalit caste, the so-called downtrodden, to hold the post.

Elected with 95% of the votes in the electoral college, he described himself as a "citizen working president". He imposed presidential rule in Uttar Pradesh in 1997 to dismiss the Kalyan Singh government, and a year later in Bihar to dismiss the Rabri Devi regime. He twice ordered the dissolution of the Indian parliament: in 1997, after Congress party president Sitaram Kesri withdrew support from the government of IK Gujral, and when the AB Vajpayee government lost a vote of confidence in April 1999.

The following month conflict developed in Kargil on the line of control with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and, there being no full government, Narayanan was briefed by the armed forces. In 2002, communal riots broke out in Gujarat and, in a recent interview, Narayanan said there had been a conspiracy involving the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government there under Narendra Modi. The president said he had asked Vajpayee to send the army to Gujarat, but Modi had done nothing effective.

The fourth child of Kocheril Raman Vaidyar, a poor practitioner of ancient Indian medicine, Narayanan was born in Uzhavoor, a village in Kerala. He studied at St Mary's high school, Kuravilangad, and CMS college, Kottayam. He obtained his MA in English literature from the University of Travancore, and in 1943 began his career as a lecturer in English at University College, Trivandrum.

His appointment, customary for students of distinction, was temporary. Sir CP Ramaswami Iyer, the vizier of Travancore, refused to give him a permanent lectureship because of a misunderstanding, and offered him a clerical job instead. When visiting Iyer, Narayanan had worn an outfit of khadi and a rolled-gold watch. The vizier, mistaking the cotton cloth for silk and the rolled gold for pure gold, took umbrage at the attire.

When Narayanan's appeal for an audience with the Maharajah of Travancore was rejected, he boycotted the degree ceremony. It was only after 50 years that he received it with good grace - and then at the request of the university.

For a while, he worked as a journalist for the Hindu and the Times of India, then came to England in 1945 and studied political science under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics.

In 1949, he joined the Indian Foreign Service at the suggestion of Jawaharlal Nehru. His ambassadorships in China (1976-78, the first since the 1962 Sino-Indian war) and the US (1980-83) led to better understanding. Serving in Rangoon, Burma, in the early 1950s, he married Daw Tint Tint, who later adopted the name Usha and became an Indian citizen, the only woman of foreign origin to have become first lady of India.

A Congress party loyalist, Narayanan entered active politics in 1984 at the request of Indira Gandhi; she was assassinated later that year. He was elected to parliament in 1984, 1989 and 1991, and held ministerial posts in Rajiv Gandhi's government of 1984-89. He became vice-president in 1992.

He is survived by his wife and two daughters, Amrita and Chitra.

· Kocheril Raman Narayanan, politician, born October 27 1920; died November 9 2005